Because I Just Realized I Never Blogged About It…

I was running through my blog today and noticed that I blogged about our trip to Rome, but never even touched our trip to London.  These locations were both in the same trip but for some reason I never blogged about London.  I’m guessing it’s because right when we got back we were telling people that were were pregnant and I was tired all the time. 

The London Eye

Houses of Parliament

Big Ben

Westminster Abbey.  It is GORGEOUS on the inside.  We were there the weekend after Prince William and Kate got married there.  We got to see her bouquet which, as a tradition, goes on the grave of the fallen soldier in the church. 

Buckingham Palace and the balcony that all of the Princes kissed their new wives on

Rumors are true - these guys don’t smile at all and just look into space.  They do get to move, though.  Every few minutes they march forward and switch places.  No one could be expected to stand still for an entire shift…that’s just cruel!

Windsor Castle, where the Queen frequently goes on the weekend.  If the Queen is there, her royal flag flies in the courtyard.  She wasn’t there when we were there.

Entering the Castle

The courtyard

We also went to St. George’s Chapel within Windsor Castle

Inside this chapel lies the bodies of many popular figures in British history, including Henry VIII.

From Windsor, we went to Stonehenge…which was very cool.  And VERY windy!

After leaving Stonehenge, we went to a small town called Laycock.  I’m sure none of you have heard it, but I’m also sure most have seen it!!!  Laycock is where the BBC version of Pride & Prejudice was filmed.  In the above picture we were going to eat at a small inn.

The next few pictures of are of the streets of Laycock, which will look familiar if you’ve seen P&P or any other BBC Jane Austen movie.  A lot of them were set there.

So if you don’t recognize the last couple of pictures based on P&P, then surely you’ll recognize the next few…

Look familiar???  If you’re a Harry Potter fan it should!!  These are the halls of Hogwarts my friends!!

Also a familiar place for Harry Potter fans.  This is Professor Slughorn’s house from Order of the Phoenix where Dumbledore and Harry come at night trying to convince him to come back to teach at Hogwarts.

This is Wales

From there, we went on to Bath.  Another VERY popular place where many Jane Austen novels are set.

Bath

They had a Jane Austen Centre!!!  Love her work!

And if you’ve seen any Jane Austen films (old or new), this is where most of the Bath scenes are filmed.

Several movie stars have houses on this block, including Johnny Depp.

Back in London, this is the Millennium Bridge…another Harry Potter landmark. 

A small structure of William Shakespeare’s Globe Theater

The real thing.  This was SOOOOOOO cool!!!

They actually still have plays here frequently.  They had a MacBeth play scheduled that evening.

The outside

On the Millennium Bridge

This is St. Paul’s Cathedral.  It’s where Princess Dianna got married and her crazy long train went up those steps!!

This is the Tower of London.  Back in the day, it was a prison and execution site.  It’s where Anne Boleyn was executed by her husband, Henry VIII.

London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down…

And my final Harry Potter reference….

We actually went to King’s Cross Station (where they go through the wall to get to Hogwarts Express). 

And that was our trip.  We had WAY more pictures, I was just narrowing it down.  I had such a great time in Rome and London, however, since I was 7 weeks pregnant, I was exhausted ALL THE TIME.  That was the part that was awful.  There was so much more I wanted to see while we were there, but I was too tired to do it.